


Border Skirmishes

by likeadeuce



Category: Henry IV Part 1 - Shakespeare, Shakespeare Histories - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Space Opera, Battling Percies, Gen, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-28
Updated: 2014-08-28
Packaged: 2018-02-15 02:31:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2212449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likeadeuce/pseuds/likeadeuce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Douglas and Hotspur think they might get away with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Border Skirmishes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [speakmefair](https://archiveofourown.org/users/speakmefair/gifts).



> Nothing in this story is meant to categorize Scottish heroes such as the Earl of Douglas as pirates (except to the extent that space pirates are awesome and so is Douglas); likewise, there is no intention to imply that Wales is in in fact a smelly sulfur pit. Douglas just gets cranky about people who put her in prison. 
> 
> That said, any perceived aspersions cast on various Plantagenets are probably intentional and as for Percies -- well don't get us started.
> 
> Thanks as always to the exchange moderators, and to DestroytheMeek & Gileonnen for beta reading and handholding.

Auri really thought they might get away with it.

Lord Aureli Douglas had been skimming gate jumpers into the central sector since she was old enough to steal one, and by now she indisputably (if she said so herself, and as anybody else said if they didn't want to settle the dispute with fists or blasters) led the best squad of raiders in the Caledonian quadrant. 

For years, no one in authority really cared about gate jumpers. Auri had lost some ships along the way, and she'd seen the inside of more detention cells than she would strictly have preferred. But mostly, the raiders used peaceful means (if no one fought back) to relieve local shipping vessels of a not-unreasonable amount of their cargo. They kept Caledonia prosperous, and the Exterior trade federations satisfied, and any run-ins with authority that couldn't be prevented with a healthy bribe could be remedied with whatever ransom payment the market would bear.

But then the Lancasters happened. Since Jan Gaunt's sourfaced offspring came into power in Central, Outer Gate Security had become, according to the dispatches Auri picked up on subspace (you could hear the capital letters in Heni Lancaster's voice when she said it), Our Greatest Priority. The Percies suddenly remembered their Sacred Charge as Guardians of the North H Gate to Protect the Hub from Caledonian scum. Bribes weren't so easy anymore. The old 'wink wink nudge nudge we won't tell as long as you don't take too much' routes were suddenly guarded. So the Lancasters kicked the Percies, and the Percies kicked Auri - and so, incidentally, did the Trade Federation, and Auri's creditors, and Auri's aunts (more than a few of whom _were_ her creditors.) 

It was time to make a move.

Auri really thought she might get away with it.

The key to skimming a jump gate was speed. You had to come at it full throttle, and pray that nobody on the other side had messed with your navsats. If something -- an asteroid, or a shuttle craft, or a defensive station -- was in a place where you didn't expect it to be, then you were looking at an unavoidable collision at an extremely high speed, resulting in a very dead pilot. But when you did it right, you careened through and rode out the curve of your velocity and by the time anyone knew you were there, you'd gone too far to be worth shooting at. 

Even under the new regime, a fast jumper or two could get through without raising much fuss. Jump gates were very big, and gate-jumpers were very small. Auri's plan was to take advantage of this complacency, and bring her whole squadron through. She would pop through first, and veer off as usual. Then another would come a good distance behind her, followed by the remaining ships, one by one, at rapidly decreasing intervals. By the time the Percy defenses realized what had hit them, they'd be overwhelmed. 

Meanwhile, Auri and her front guard would have time to circle around and come back to take the now undefended sentinel stations, positioned on asteroids at either side of the gate. When the dust settled, the Caledonians would have a formidable armed position on either side of the gate and the Percies would, at the very least, be forced to negotiate.

To be sure, Lord Percy's heir, the one they called Hotspur, was rumored to favor airlocks as negotiating techniques. But then, no one lived forever. 

And besides, Auri still had some leverage where Hotspur was concerned. Maybe.

It was a very good plan. Auri's jumper came through fast and on course. Her head pushed back, she strained her arms and feet forward against the shift in gravity. It was as good as she had ever felt. It was the only thing she was born to do. 

As she shot past the asteroid, the subspace frequency crackled with noise and confusion. Auri had begun singing "Brave Caledonia." Then she rounded and turned to face the gate head on. . . 

An enormous grid shone in front of her, crackling yellow lines guarding the approach to the station. A dozen Caledonian jumpers clung to them like flypaper. Auri jerked forward, reached out to the instrument panel, moving to change course, but realizing with a sinking stomach that the ship was not going anywhere. She banged on the weapons console, but she already knew it wouldn't fire. 

"God damn it, Percy."

"You don't like our new toys, Dougie, my dear?" The emergency comm flashed to life, and Auri was looking at an all-too-familiar face: that unfortunate Percy nose; hair short and shaggy, flecked with the same gold as the light brown eyes that always bugged a bit too far out of her head. That and the unhinged smile that meant this time she really had you. Bloody Hotspur. "Your jumper's autonomic life support ought to sustain you for the hour or two it takes my people to rescue all of yours."

"Rescue," Auri snorted.

"Capture, then," said Hotspur. "I'd be within my rights to have you all executed as pirates but --" she sighed. "Mum likes to pretend you're enemy combatants. It makes her feel more important."

"She expects the ransoms my backers pay will make her feel rich, is what you mean to say."

"Think pleasant thoughts," Hotspur said as the monitor faded out. "No dying before I get paid." 

 

They let Auri stew in central detention for, she estimated, six Caledonian solar cycles before anyone came to see her. If anything, she expected it to take longer. The Percies would have to go to the Hub to kiss Lancaster boots before getting permission to do anything, even on their own station. And frankly, Auri didn't expect her aunts, sponsors, and creditors to get the ransom together any time soon, either.

Auri figured the Percies would let her stew in her juices, toss and turn on the sleek, hard cot, and contemplate the vista that stretched around three-quarters of the holding cell, a transparent wall that bubbled out to give the illusion that the occupant was standing unsupported in space. Auri was an experienced pilot who had entered her first zero G environment as soon as she was big enough to fit in a helmet, and she knew this had to be (had to be?) a holographic illusion that simply reproduced the outerdeck view screens. Even so, it was a challenge to keep her head, when she looked straight down to see the lush green colony planet below, and, straight ahead, the parade of trade ships that approached, accelerated, and then disappeared in a flash through the North H jumpgate. 

Wthe klaxons started to blare, warning the cell's prisoner away from the now-electrified walls, Auri scrambled off the cot, making an effort to arrange her shapeless robe. The cell had a thermal cleansing apparatus, and adequate waste disposal, so Auri knew she wasn't dirty. But it lacked anything like a mirror, so she was reduced to arranging her long, loose hair -- they'd confiscated the pins she typically used to keep her elaborate braids in place -- with her fingers.

As she got to her feet, a transparent screen rose from the floor, separating her from any new arrival. Auri stood at attention with fists clenched by her side and tried to project an air of dignity through sheer willpower. Two helmeted guards entered, and positioned themselves at an angle on either edge of the screen. Auri just had the time to register that they were too highly ranked for mere prison guards, when Hotspur -- always late even when she was early -- sauntered in, struck a pose with her hands in her belt loops, and drawled, "Looooord Douglas."

Auri's fists clenched by her side. "Percy," she said evenly, willing herself not to look backwards. If the cell _were_ rigged up so that Hotspur could press a button and send her prisoner flying into the vacuum of space, Auri had no particular desire to see it coming. Nothing about Hotspur's smile, or her eyes, or the nearly tiptoe-stance that signaled she was ready for a fight, even with the barrier between them, did anything to set Auri's mind at ease. 

It was the same look she'd wielded in school days, when she'd demanded to know why they _shouldn't_ take the fencing master's skimmer for a joy-ride over the swamplands of Hibernia. There was no reason they shouldn't, and immediately after, they had; they'd served the resulting detentions together as well, and they'd never been sorry. Auri hoped she still looked enough like her schoolgirl self, and that Hotspur would care.

Then Hotspur smacked the barrier, and turned her deranged smile on the guard. "What the bloody blazes have we got this thing up for? It's just old Douglas."

"Lord Hari?" asked the shorter guard, uncertainly. "Your mothers instructed --"

Hotspur cuffed the guard's shoulder with the back of her hand -- nominally playful but landing with a solid thwack. "I'll deal with the old biddies, you --" Hotspur turned to point at the other guard but she was already pressing a button that would lower the barrier. Before the thing had gone all the way down, Hotspur hopped over it and grabbed Auri's shoulders, pulling them down toward her in a suffocating hug. 

Auri's upper body remained stiff, ready for this to be a bad joke, if not an assault. But Hotspur pulled back, looked her in the eye, and said, "Dougi, old friend. It’s time for us to talk."

*

"This is positive luxury right here." Hotspur flopped onto the rock hard cot. Her feet still touched the floor and she worked her calves up and down as though she were bouncing on a comfortable mattress. Auri was familiar enough with the physics of the bed to know bouncing was impossible – whatever synthetic the thing was made of, it was effectively stone -- but she knew better than to argue this point. "I might move in here myself," Hotspur continued. "I don't know what your lieutenants are whining about." 

Auri hadn't seen or spoken to any of her comrades since the arrest, and keenly would have liked to know that, herself. But there was no point in asking Hotspur a direct question, so she grunted, "Probably the expired bugshit you've been feeding us."

"Oh, that." Hotspur chuckled. "My aunt assures me insect protein is the next big thing in mass nutrition. Should eliminate the need for hydroponics altogether within a few generations."

"And the mold, I suppose is seasoning."

"Cheer up, old girl. K and I will have you up in the suite for evening mess – oh, do get lost!" This last was directed at one of the guards, who continued to hover just out of Auri’s lunging range, with a hand on her blaster. The guard scowled, muttered something inaudible, and went to join her counterpart on the other side of the chamber. The second guard had been talking into a communicator since Hotspur ordered the barrier down, presumably speaking with Percy's Auntie or Mum. 

Hotspur rolled her eyes in their direction, then sat up halfway, and patted the bed beside her. "Get down here and let's work some things out."

It took Auri a moment to be sure of what Hotspur _wasn't_ proposing – they had been in school together, after all – and even after she thought she knew, Auri choked out, "I prefer to stand." 

"Don't worry, no funny business. My husband would be jealous."

It took a moment to be sure Hotspur was still speaking Common, but then Auri recalled the archaic word for a “male spouse.” She'd heard rumours, of course, but this seemed eccentric even for them. 

"You and Kati?" Auri asked. Her eyes instinctively went to Hotspur's left wrist.

"He's just 'K', now," Hotspur said, and obligingly flipped over to show a tattoo, sporting the intertwined crests of Percy and Mortimer. Marks on each letter indicated the generation and branch that each member of the marriage belonged to. There was no outer border indicating it was a monogamous match, but then, the Mortimers were a client house to the Percies; any conditions in the marriage might only go one way. On the other hand, if K had turned out to be the jealous type, that could trump even the most restrictive contract. 

Whatever the reason, Hotspur seemed to find the concept of seducing someone she had taken prisoner to be absurdly laughable. It was pretty fucked up that she thought it was a funny joke, but that was Hotspur. Auri probably would have been laughing, too, in her position.

Auri made sure to sit upright, keeping things as businesslike as possible. "I want to hear all my lieutenants' complaints on their prison conditions, and I want to see them rectified. And supper in your quarters is all well and good, but I want a part in the ransom negotiations too."

"Ransom?" Hotspur repeated, looking puzzled. Then her grin spread from ear to ear. "Douglas, my old girl, there's no ransom. You and your subordinates are free to go."

"Out the airlock?" Auri asked warily.

"Back to Caledonia. But first – oh yes, did I forget to mention this part? You're going to help us fuck over the House of Lancaster, once and for all."

**

When Auri pressed her hand to the security shield outside the Percies' quarters, a light over the door flashed, the bulkhead slid open, and she stepped into the middle of a terrific row.

"If you _loved_ me," K was shouting, "Then you wouldn't do this."

Hotspur stepped back and spread her hands. "You say I don't love you -- like I can't love you from the cockpit of a jump fighter."

"You make every bloody thing into a joke, and this isn't a joke and if you leave, I swear on my Mortimer blood --" Abruptly, K pivoted toward the entrance. "What the hell is wrong with you?" Auri stepped back, ready to retreat, but this set off a buzzer to let her know the door was in the process of closing and would smash her if she moved any further. K caught her eye and said quickly, "Not you, Auri. Hi, Auri." K stabbed an accusing finger at the squat protocol droid that stood by the door. "This bloody thing." 

"Apologies, your lordship --" it began to intone. At which point K punched the flat, blinking monitor that served the robot as a face. This was followed by a torrent of profanity, and knuckle-kissing by K. The droid didn't even wobble.

"I can come back later?" 

Auri offered.

"No," said Hotspur, at the same time K said, "Yes."

"No," Hotspur repeated and moved up behind her husband to rest a hand on each of K's shoulders. K glared back and down several centimeters at his considerably shorter spouse. Hotspur's body was solid, like Auri's, hard with the kind of muscles built in flight-training modules to brace against shifts in speed and gravity. K's was chiseled, his arms ropey with the kind of lean muscle built in a gym for aesthetic purposes. Auri wasn't sure who she would have bet on if they'd come to actual blows. She was sure she'd get the hell out of the way.

"Relax, darling," said Hotspur. "I set the droid to open the door for Dougi's handprint. It's my fault."

"I know it's your fault," K snapped. "Garbage in, garbage out. That's why I'm the programmer in the family. Anyway...." Looking down at his shirtfront, he said, "I'm not remotely dressed for dinner." But he eased away from Hotspur's touch and turned a smile on Auri. "I'm sorry you had to witness that."

"I'm early," said Auri.

"You're on time. Hari and I were distracted." K held out a hand. "Hello, Auri. It's been too long."

Auri didn't think it was advisable to point out that the old schoolmates could have gone even longer without seeing each other, if K's spouse hadn't taken her squadron captive. Instead, Auri dipped her head in a show of traditional Caledonian gallantry, and tried not to stare at K's chest. When the three were last together, they had all been fourteen, K had been a Katerin, and her breasts had begun to bud like any normal person's. The shirt K wore now fit tightly over the chest and stomach, making it clear that the abdominal muscles were tight and prominent, the pectorals completely flat. 

"You're looking well, K." Auri said, and then realized she had no idea how to follow that up.

K's mouth twitched into a smile. "Whatever you have to say, it won't be the stupidest thing I've heard in the last ten years." 

"Well, then. Thank you for your hospitality." Auri raised the bottle she'd been holding behind her back. "I brought some whisky from my aunt's distillery."

"Did you sneak that in?" Hotspur demanded.

Auri wasn't sure how she was supposed to have done that, considering she'd been strip-searched by multiple unpleasant methods on the way in. 

K intervened. "They sell it on the market deck, you idiot." Taking the bottle, he said, "Thank you. You've already been more useful than my wife _or_ this bloody droid. I'm going to go get dressed properly. Hari, at least get that thing to set the table. And lay out the hors d'ouevre." With a too-bright smile directed at Auri, he said, "We have real fruit."

"You're the one who wanted the robot butler!" Hotspur called after him. 

K kept going, making an obscene gesture behind his back. (Auri noticed his tattoo now, saw the circle indicating monogamy.) This gave Hotspur a chance to grab hold of his wrist. K pulled up, turned, and acquiesced as Hotspur brought a hand to the back of his head and pulled him down for a kiss. 

It was long, and then it was over. K pulled back and said, "Have fun planning your war."

"Is that what we're doing?" Auri asked, once K was out of the room.

"Oh yes," Hotspur said. "But -- drinks first." 

While Hotspur and the droid, between them, worked at pouring the glasses without breaking the bottles (and from the sound of it, that was a near thing) Auri stood quietly in the living area and looked at the screenshots that flashed and moved along the wall. Hotspur and K together with a cherub-faced offspring. The child had K's thick dark hair and full lips, although the genetic mixer had, probably because of who was paying her bill, given the poor moppet a Percy nose.

Hotspur tapped Auri's shoulder with a whisky glass, which she accepted and gratefully tasted. As soon as she was in mid-swallow, Hotspur smacked her arm and demanded, "Tell me what you're thinking."

The challenge was not to choke, so Auri carefully didn't. The time it took to swallow gave her a chance to formulate a reply. "You have made some interesting choices. As a family."

"K didn't choose," Hotspur said, all levity gone from her voice. "He is what he is. I know some people find that threatening."

"Of course. Because breeding the male chromosome to near-extinction has done such a good job of weeding out war and aggression." 

They locked eyes for a moment, and then Hotspur barked out a laugh. "I knew I liked you." She strode back to the table, picked up a round golden fruit of some kind, and tossed it to Auri.

"Try this. I don't care much for the stuff either way, but Mum swears it's as good as they used to grow in Ricardi's hanging gardens." 

Auri considered the fruit politely, and decided to bite straight into it. It had an odd tangy flavor, but she smiled gamely. "I remember. I spent some time at Ricardi's court. In a manner of speaking."

"So you did. Is it true she even fed her hostages real animal meat and hothouse vegetables?"

"All true. We slept on fine couches, and she came down of an evening to read us her poetry."

"Well." Hotspur pulled a face at the mention of poetry. "Nobody's perfect. But truly – speaking of Ricardi -- It seems clear now that we all rather misjudged the old dame."

"Indeed?" Auri raised an eyebrow. "Pardon me if I find one prison as good as any other." In fact, Ricardi had provided soft beds and decadent meals, and anyone less Philistine than Hotspur would have recognized that the music and poetry at her court were as fine as any to be had outside of Caledonia itself. Even when the evenings (frequently) ended with the Monarch in tears and begging to know why it was that the trading federations who sponsored Auri's raids didn't _like_ her when she was just trying to do a very difficult job – well, once Auri trained herself to listen with a straight face, they could be quite humorous.

Of course, there was the part that happened after Ricardi got bored. Then she'd have Auri trussed up to let her favorites practice their knife-throwing, or turn off the anti-grav in the cells, just to see what would happen. Truthfully, the whole experience had put Auri off organic meat and hothouse fruits forever. She'd have taken the Percies' bug shit any day.

"I was still there when Lancaster took over," Auri said, discreetly putting aside the half-eaten fruit to have more whisky. "That was a rather different experience." The cell had occupied less space than the bed in the Percies' detention area, and the walls on every side were hard and mirrored, yet quite transparent to sound, so that it was clear she was being watched at all times by people she could hear, but not see. "The best part was when the Monarch would parade Hali and the rest of her bratty offspring down to look at the prisoners and listen to sermons about moral rectitude."

Hotspur slapped her thigh and hooted with laughter, no doubt from imagining her youthful rival decked up for chapel and dragged down to the oubliette instead. Sobering, she said, "You can thank me for sparing you a return trip. Oh, yes. The Old Lady expected me to deliver all my hostages into her hands."

Suddenly, Auri began to understand what a fit of pique she was witnessing. "Gods. No wonder you're setting us free. You'd rather let us go than let Lancaster have us."

"I'd rather," Hotspur answered, "Have control of this station my progenitors built. I'd rather have free trade with the Exterior. I'd rather not have to fight Lancaster's wars and then kiss her boots to thank her for the privilege."

Auri was definitely starting to see the benefit of such an alliance – beyond the benefit, of course, of simply not being in prison. "Was this your idea?" 

Hotspur attempted a modest shrug, something she couldn't pull off well at all. "Mum and Auntie helped a bit. And Glendower." She paused mid-bite and raised her eyebrows, as if waiting to be congratulated on engineering such an alliance.

"You made a deal with Glendower?" Auri tied to sound as neutral as possible. Of all the prisons she had been in, Glendower's certainly had the foulest smell and the highest mortality rate. It was hard to say if the smell was any better elsewhere on the sulfurous asteroid that formed the seat of her power. The instances of negligent homicide were harder to overlook. 

"Glendower had the idea." K's voice came from behind them. "My traitorous idiot sibling, who thinks she's in love with Glendower's daughter, somehow convinced Hari's mum it was in our best interests. Now if you give her half a chance, my wife is going to convince you it's what you want, too."

"I didn't have to convince her, she was in _prison_!"

"Where you _put_ her – I'm sorry you're in the middle of this, Auri – with the new weapons you got from Lancaster." 

"From Lancaster?" Auri said. "Now that _is_ interesting."

"See!" Hotspur whirled around and pointed a finger at K. "This is why I shouldn't tell you anything!"

"MAY - I - OFFER - YOU - A - DRINK?" The robot butler wheeled toward K, carrying a glass of whisky, and for a moment all of them stared at it. 

Then Auri started to laugh, trying desperately to cover it with her hand and failing completely. K was the next to break, crashing down into a chair. "Yes," he said. "By all means. Bring me a drink. Bring me all of the drinks."

K slammed back the whisky, "I shouldn't have come here," he said. "If none of you were going to listen to me – and I knew none of you were going to listen – I should have stayed down on the colony. At least I could have spent some time with our daughter before you got us all banished or arrested or –" 

"So why did you?" Auri said. "Come."

"Because." K stood up, stretched, and walked over to Hotspur. Then he took hold of her wrist, and pulled her down into a kiss. He pulled away, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and said, "Because for some reason, I love this idiot. Now. I'm going to the market. Have your war talk, but don't wait up for me."

At the door, he said, "Think hard about what he's trying to talk you into, Auri." 

When he was gone, Auri looked at Hotspur. "K really hates your plan, doesn't he?"

"He thinks it will get us all killed."

"What do you think?"

"I think," Hotspur said, "That it's a very good plan. And no one lives forever." She clapped her hands. "Robot! Show us the map."

They spent the evening with 4-D projections and the diminishing bottle of whisky. The way Hotspur explained it, it seemed like a very good plan.

Auri really thought they might get away with it.


End file.
